Grief and social support after the death of a spouse

Abstract

The death of a spouse is one of the most stressful events in a person's life. Social support has been shown to be widely beneficial in moderating the effects of both chronic and acute stress. The answers of Finnish widows and widowers (n=318) were analysed in order to investigate the sources of social support, what is the nature of support received, and whether social support is connected with coping with grief. The Hogan Grief Reactions Checklist was used to describe the grief as well as answers to open-ended questions about what helped the widowed persons cope with their grief. Kahn's theory of social support was used as a framework in the content analysis of the open-ended answers. The results showed that Finnish widows and widowers receive social support most often from their own family and friends. They perceived the received support most helpful, but also the support that the grieving person can give to other family members is seen as important. Results suggest that those who had had social support were able to grieve by allowing themselves to disorganize and experience panic behaviour.

Find a way out: bereavement support in Taiwan hospice

“…Although a wide range of bereavement services have been reported [13,17,20,30] and many have been modified and adopted in Taiwan, the outcome seems to not have met the expectation.…”

“…Meanwhile, it is reported that more than 90% of the bereaved believed that they adjusted well and enjoyed the company of the people whom they had around them and that they received support from them [5,13]. The most important support persons were the close family members, friends, and extended family [13].…”

“…The most important support persons were the close family members, friends, and extended family [13]. Although care in planning postbereavement interviews has been proven beneficial [29], not everyone needs extra support from hospice care team [26].…”

An Evaluation of a Suicide Bereavement Peer Support Program

“…Its developers report high Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the individual scales (.90 to .79) and overall (.90). This HGRC has been used internationally to examine components of peer support (Boelen, Van Den Bout, De Keijser, & Hoijtink, 2003;Kaunonen, Tarkka, Paunonen, & Laippala, 1999).…”

The First Anniversary: Stress, Well-Being, and Optimism in Older Widows

“…An associated threat may be the poignant reminder of the death. Although anniversary reactions can trigger pathology in vulnerable bereaved persons (Morgan, Kingham, Nicolaou, & Southwick, 1998), previous studies of widows' well-being during the first year of spousal loss have not focused on the death anniversary (Costello & Kendrick, 2000;Kaunonen, Tarkka, Paunonen, & Laippala, 1999;Kurtz, Kurtz, Given, & Given, 1997).…”